After a ferocious bidding war on trademe.co.nz on Saturday night, I bought it. On the Sunday I made a phone-call to arrange a time for collection and then headed on the trip from Invercargill to Gore to buy it. I arrived and backed up my huge trailer to the seller’s huge trailer and we moved the beast across.

From Austin...

...to Nissan

These are the Dai’s of our Lives. Lame Joke, I know. Anyway, once the transfer was completed and the little sucker was strapped to the trailer the journey home began

Rear view filled with Daihatsu.

…with a stop in every town along the way back home just to make sure the straps weren’t about to let go at any stage, and just to give you an idea of scale and how hilarious the Max looked on the journey home, have a look at these next images.

Standard Trailer, Massive Car.

Hooked up, front.

Rear.

Almost a shame the Terrano isn’t a Navara, it would be close to being able to just be driven onto the deck. That would have been even more amusing!

Of course, before too long I’d made it home and with a little bit of fun of games it was taken off the trailer and sat in it’s future parking area;

In all it's huge glory with it's C110 stablemate cowering in the background

With the move complete, I toddled off and returned the trailer to my parents house and then scurried back and got stuck in, just to see how deep a pool I’d gotten myself into.

Head was off the engine, crank spun free as a bird.

Massive engine shot with a capacity reminder

…and after removing the mess of things from the interior,

Some spares, and the all important grille!

...some more spares!

The cylinders, pistons and some spare glass, stoked.

and of course having found the grille, it would be rude to not try it on for size;

Max fitment

You may have noticed my “gangster” front plate. It only had one screw so there was nothing left to do but remove it completely.

With all the spare parts and random years of crap taken out of the car it was time to remove the seats to scope the condition of the floor out. The main pan, pretty damn good. The rear. Not so flash.

Despite stains on the passenger side, it's not all bad.

Removing rear seat + screwdriver =

So it needs to have some new steel welded in, in places. I’ll try removing the front wings at a later date to track down any further potential issues. Despite the look of the boot area, it was damn solid and just needs a light wire brush and a bit of paint.

Then it was on to more important things like the trendy manner of measuring dish with your cellphone;

Max Dish!

and if that doesn’t give you a good idea of scale, perhaps this will…

That's right, my phone is as wide as the tyres. Massive.

With everything tidied up on the interior and it left to dry out a little as it was a bit damp from having a mass of Marley sound deadening/insulation in it as well as the hideous brown carpets, it was tucked into it’s resting spot until I can next get the time to get further stuck in.

Home now.

In the meantime, I’ll search for a replacement set of pistons and pins, the bore of the cylinders will require a little hone and then re-assembly time and a check of whether the little bugger will live or not. Looking forward to that two-smoke moment. If you can be of any assistance in this regard, please do so! I’m eager to hear from anyone who has bits and pieces, perhaps even a complete engine that I could utilise and before anyone says it. No, I’m not putting a different engine in it.

Hahah, so many responses! It’s sweet really I reckon. I’m sure I can get it sorted for less than a daily would cost me once I sell the Terrano so that’s exactly it’s purpose. Daily ’74 Two-Smoke Max. Sounds ideal to me, to be honest.

Rhys; I tried for a dollar, then someone outbid me. Then I had it at $80 then some chap in Auckland kept doing last minute bids all the way to $90, then stopped. $1 would have been better, but $90 will do!

Chris; Moar dish than your Escort and a better engine.

Ed; WOOOOOOOOOOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!

Lochlan; I have a rim plan is vaguely being calculated in my noggin, the wheels are weird as fuck though, I just need to find more factory ones, two more should be enough.

I’m from Portugal, and i have one of those. It’s a 73 version. It has small changes. You’ll have a lot of work there to do. My car is almost restored. I had many problems to get some parts and to fix others, but in a cople of months i’ll be driving the car.